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Nidalee's Remodel

As a Nidalee player of 2+ years I’d like to discuss Nidalee's remodel after trying her out with all her skins in multiple games. I’d like to congratulate the artists that worked on her because despite what I think they did a good job and her model looks nice. Unfortunately, as a Nidalee player I am not impressed and there are many reasons for this which I will discuss. The new models, however good they may look, are not Nidalee quality and are missing details, Nidalee has allot of bugs(some game breaking) that have not been addressed, and her controls are even more awkward than previously.

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1) Nidalee Models, Animations, and Particles
So let us start off with Nidalee's new model and what I mean by missing details and the new models not being Nidalee quality. First off, just based off Nidalee's lore she is a wild woman from the jungle but she originally came from a civilized part of the world. She lost her parents to mysterious disease while she was with them in the middle of the jungle hunting treasure. Why does she more resemble a civilized person trying to look like a wild woman instead of a wild woman trying to look somewhat civilized? Her animations are the only thing that holds the wild woman vibe but her appearance fails at it.

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Models/Skins:
Her splash art does an ok job of portraying the wild woman that she is and her movements and animations reflect this as well but all of her models have this domestic civilized look to them and are lacking in the quality that we have seen in previous models like Katarina. I though the quality bar was set a little higher than this but I can understand that some details may be lower for something you will rarely see up close.

I would be ok with her new models but there are some serious issues I have with her remade models and skins. Nidalee’s standard, Snow Bunny, and Leopard skins all have these huge things on her legs and while it is an upgrade from her Dorito/pyramid/anchor feet from before what the heck are they and what purpose do they serve? They seem completely out of place and too large. I can imagine she may have something on her legs to protect them from jungle brush but these are just absurd and could be shrunk down a lot more as I can’t see someone running very well with such absurd things wrapped around their legs.

Standard, Leopard, French Maid, and Snow Bunny Nidalee all have a Saber toothed tiger cougar form with male lion’s mane instead of a cougar body. I can see this as kind of giving the impression of a cougar that is morphed from a human. The cougar retains some aspects of the human form like Nidalee’s long hair but why the Saber teeth that look way too long to be able to bite with and also why such a thick tail that I could only imagine being on a lizard?

Snow Bunny Nidalee had the wrong color scheme and the color is still off. She is supposed to have this hot pink coloration and in the PBE she had bright red instead. We were told this would be corrected but it looks more like the color was just dulled instead of change. The equivalent of what happens to color in clothes that are washed way too many times.

Pharaoh Nidalee is probably by far now her worst skin since she now looks like a chubby Barbie doll with huge metal weights on her legs that again just seem very out of place and way too big. Her face is just awkward and doesn’t really fit the theme or her character and the worst part is her Cougar form no longer has that awesome gold earring anymore.

Bewitching Nidalee in most cases is again worse than it was before especially the human model but I am glad she has her bats now instead of leaves. A side by side comparison of the old bewitching model to her new one will show what I’m talking about.
Lastly most of her skins seem to still be using old assets and new assets haven’t been made nor does it seem like they will be anytime soon.

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Animations:
All of Nidalee animations are off and either don’t match her abilities and attacks or look odd. Her auto attack and Javelin Toss are the worst culprits here but her pounce and swipe are also off as well and doesn’t look like a damaging attack.

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Particles:
It’s great that Bewitching Nidalee got new bat particles but it would have been even nicer if some of the other suggestions got noticed too. Snow Bunny Nidalee would look really nice in Frost Blade Irelia’s persistent frost particles with large frost particles associated with her passive and abilities. Pharaoh Nidalee would look great in sand particles.

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Models/Skins Conclusion:
Over all I think riot announced Nidalee too soon, too many people wanted a finished product too soon and she was rushed out too soon. Since she was rushed not much feedback seems to have been considered in the rework and now she is missing some of her old models great details.

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2) Nidalee Has Bugs! Didn’t you know?
I’m sure many people have read my thread and watched allot of the videos that me and various other players have put together but despite the attempts at drawing awareness to allot of these bugs we get ignored. Allot of the bugs are minor annoyances with Nidalee’s ancient control scheme but others are absolutely game breaking and still haven’t been fixed.
I’ll just leave a link to the thread and a small list of the worst bugs here.
Nidalee has bugs! Didn’t you know? (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=501818)
[QUOTE]List of major bugs:Bushwhack:
1) When transforming immediately from cougar form and trying to lay a trap Nidalee lays them directly below her instead of where your cursor is.Primal Surge:
1) When directly transforming from cougar form and trying to heal Nidalee immediately heals herself. This is kind of ok unless you are trying to clutch heal an ally.
2) When switching from cougar to Human form and casting Primal surge on Nidalee or an ally Nidalee will deal the damage for swipe and the heal at the same time to the target. If swipe has more damage than Primal Surge has heal then the target takes damage. – Last patch should have addressed this and I have yet to see it since then - Nidalee heal damaging teammates or herself upon switching to human video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RjKRqVSo5E)

It should also be noted that The heal bug applies swipe's damage first and then heals the target. The result is swipe goes on cooldown first and then heal goes on cooldown but if the target is killed by Swipe's damage then the heal never gets used. For more clarity: When you change forms the targeting diamond for Nidalee's heal becomes usable immediately but the heal itself doesn't work for a split second. In this split second your targeting diamond actual allows you to target allies with swipe within that small time frame.

Pounce:
1) Numerous listed bugs.Aspect of the Cougar:
1) Nidalee now constantly drops commands randomly after using any cougar ability.
2) Multiple skills in cougar form have random tool-tip errors all the way from abilities saying they do 0 damage plus the AP scaling to there being level 1 text on a level 3 ability last one being the rarest. – One of the oldest Nidalee bugs.

3) Nidalee controls are even more awkward than before after the remodel:
I would think that if RIOTers were going to put the time into remaking Nidalee’s model they would at least clean up Nidalee abilities and mechanics in much the same way they went about taking care of Cho’gath. Nidalee cougar form steers like a school bus down a narrow ally way. If you make contact with any enemy or allied collisions Nidalee controls go from aiming directly in front of her to being more like an out of control compass needle spinning in all directions. The control issues I’m talking about are shared between pounce, swipe, and Cougar movement in general. These affect both new and season Nidalee players but new players are affected the most. Player skill level does reduce the amount of times you get caught in a situation where these control issues occur but only because seasoned players try to avoid them and not because they are immune to them from pure muscle memory as many like to say.

Another issue I’d like to bring up is bushwhack. It’s an ability with a powerful debuff on it and decent damage but it tends to be seemingly underwhelming due to a lack of CC and that it has long trigger times and a delay before it even does damage. There is about a 1.5 second after being placed before it can be triggered and it has a 1 second delay before it does damage over 2 seconds. Because of this an enemy can easily avoid them and if an enemy triggers multiple traps in a row (not stacked but lined up) they will only take the damage of 1 trap. The traps need to be able to punish people for setting them off without you having to be near them especially since they are much easier to see than before.

Due to this I’d like to make a few suggestions to pounce swipe and bushwhack.

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Pounce:

The main problem with pounce is not necessarily the way it’s controlled but a combination of how it is controlled and her interaction with allied and enemy collisions. Swipe has the very same problem and unfortunately her controls do not give you the feeling of an agile, fast, and flexible Big Cat.
I don't like the idea of her purely jumping to her cursor because it doesn't fix her control over swipe. Jumping to the cursor makes it easier for her to escape but doesn't really improve her combat effectiveness. She doesn’t need to be able to escape easier she needs to be able to fight with her abilities better.
I'd prefer a different approach:
Allow Nidalee to ignore unit collisions. (She seriously has some really messed up pathing around minions, champions, etc) Both Pounce and Swipe retain the current Control scheme unless under certain conditions.
If Nidalee highlights an enemy with the cursor then swipe and pounce will claw/jump in the direction of that enemy.
This fixes 3 issues -
1. Nidalee will no longer leap over targets dealing 0 damage with pounce.
2. Nidalee will swipe in the direction of enemies immediately instead of having a long delay and slow turn radius hindering her from damaging enemies.
3. Nidalee will be able to pounce to an intended target even when there are minions, champions, or fuster clucked instances of utter chaos.
Currently her controls are slow, telegraphed, clunky, and often unpredictable when in contact with enemy and allied collisions.

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Bushwhack:

My last suggestion is a suggestion for Bushwhack which again aims at improving functionality. Nidalee places bushwhack at choke points to catch would be gankers or spot enemies on the map but you often set many traps in the same choke point to insure that all paths are covered and enemies can’t avoid them. The problem is enemies that hit 1 traps go ahead and set them all off and the result is you just lost 120 to a good 500+ mana worth of casting on one enemy who only takes the damage of 1 trap.

Traps have a dot so you can’t exploit stacking traps like a shaco would do with Jack in the boxes but they don’t account for multiple traps being setup over an area. As such Nidalee players lose out on this and I’d like to suggest a change that will even out the exchange while maintaining the no stacking effect.

1. Reduce the delay before traps trigger by half. I’m assuming it is about 1.5 seconds so reduce it to 0.75 seconds
2. Remove the delay before traps do damage and either reduce the tic timer to about 1 or 1.5 seconds instead of 2 seconds or have them at least do 50% of the damage instantly upfront (like saplings do half of their damage on impact and the other half on detonation).

I hope we can have an honest and civil discussion on Nidalee and her remodel. I enjoy this game and have high expectations for the new content especially since the bar has been set higher with each release. I just feel that the current remodel falls below the previous content releases and that there is allot of other work that hasn’t been finished that really needs to be. The analogy I can draw from this is the equivalent of giving a rusted out beat up truck with serious engine problems a new paint job without fixing all of those problems. Sure it may look better but it is still the same beat up truck.

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EDIT:

Next Patch should feature a bug fix for her heal bug, All her face models should be adjusted to look the same, and Snowbunny Nidalee and maybe a few other skins should get their colors adjusted.

TL;DR: The Nidalee remodel was good but not great and doesn’t meet the quality of previous content releases and remodels. Nidalee has a ton of issues that have not been addressed yet and her remodel was the perfect time to knock all of that out as well.

I don't have a problem with the aesthetics of the default/Leopard skin; can't speak for Pharaoh, I thought it was crappy to begin with and still is. I do believe her face could've been done better (the old eyes were more predatory, and she didn't look so chubby and innocent) but you rarely see her face in-game, so it hasn't been bugging me as much.

As far as "the big things on her legs", I guess they were trying to keep it similar to the old triangle feet she was known for. Plus maybe they were thinking something along the lines of barbarian-style legwarmers. It doesn't make much sense for the jungle, but it doesn't look terrible on her, either. I prefer them over the thought of some simple sandals or tiny, plain leather boots.

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Sagee Prime:

Nidalee cougar form steers like a school bus down a narrow ally way. If you make contact with any enemy or allied collisions Nidalee controls go from aiming directly in front of her to being more like an out of control compass needle spinning in all directions.

This made me lol, but it's true. I'd love to see some QoL changes for Pounce and such, and everything else you mentioned.

The bugfixes are a no-brainer, hopefully Riot will get to that... at some point... especially the self-damaging heal.

I'm glad to see people actually care. I hope this can actually get some real red attention and not be booted to some unknown part of the forums like most of my threads.

Also I know this is kinda strange but I always though this would make great theme music for Nidalee: Position Music - Trial By Warriors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkZP62r6I7A)

Also here are some Rioter posts on Nidalee:

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Grumpy Monkey:

I made the changes you asked for. I don't think they will be in this patch though.
Changes I made, Her face is unified and looks the same throughout all her skins. (Different make up and different eycolor though), I made the texture changes to snow bunny, lighter hair and more pink. The changes will need time to make it into the patch and to be propagated up. If I can hot fix and somehow get it pushed up sooner for you guys I will. Just be patient.

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Grumpy Monkey:

Zencat I appriciate your enthusiasm, but I want you to know, that when threads are nice and calm, you will be more apt to get a response from a Red. Nobody wants to walk into a minefield right?
Your original post was very well put together, and I really appreciate the model viewer shots.

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ricklessabandon:

they aren't finished quite yet. the splash team has been working full steam on seasonal/new content, which takes priority over updating older images when we're time-constrained.

she will get updates other than just the base, it'll just be a bit longer—apologies for the wait.

While I've only been playing for a year, and do only co-op games, i see a lot of these issues all the time.
and though co-op is a lot less punishing and allows even some of the bugs to be less punishing when they happen, hitting a minion and turning around only to pounce backwards into the chasing team, in a Co-op game this can a lot of times not be such a bad thing as a good Nidalee in bot games will still turn to escape, but in PvP this could be devastating.

I have other issues with her splash art, but i think your discussion about the leg issues on the model more then sum's up my shared opinion there, and mine covers the splash art as well..
Seriously WTF is with those GIANT fur bootie things.. they don't make sense even from an artistic standpoint, NOTHING else on her form/design is giant and fluffy like that. From a "practical" standpoint, something akin to a shinguard would make sense in a jungle, but those are more likely to do 2 things
1) Interact with themselves making it clunky to run (Seriously, put on a few dozen socks and see if your feet don't hit each other)
2) Get caught on any/everything in the jungle, sticking out and fluffy like that is more likely to get caught and snagged on brush and limbs in the jungle then it is to protect your legs from thorns/scapes

I hope this doesnt get condemned to the Feedback forum again.. i went back over 40 pages there and couldnt find a single red post in that forum.

If it gets condemned again, i will be right here with you trying to keep one front page until we get some response from a red.
Nidalee's my favorite character so im really hoping for something for her.